TD Jakes - After The Fire Goes Out
Once you open your hearts and minds as we prepare to go to the Word of God. This is my new point from the book of Exodus, chapter 4, verses 18 through 21. As we go to it, I want the Word of God to speak to your life in a profound way so that your life is changed, you’re strengthened, and you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As I share this with you, I believe you’ll understand better why the Lord led me to this text, Exodus 4:18–21. When you have a child, a man, Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, «Let me go, I pray thee, and return to my brethren which are in Egypt and see whether they be yet alive.» And Jethro said to Moses, «Go in peace.»
And the Lord said to Moses, «Go, return into Egypt; for all the men are dead which sought thy life.» And Moses took his wife and his sons, set them upon an ass, and returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, «When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in thy hand; but I will harden his heart, and he shall not let the people go.» Can you say amen? I want to use for a subject this morning, «After the Fire Goes Out.» Let’s pray:
Spirit of the Living God, bless and change us through Your Word today. Let it bring forth fruit in our lives in such a way that we are never the same. We believe You for increase; we trust You for tomorrow. Tomorrow belongs to You, and we believe You for it. We esteem You more than we do unnecessary food. Let Your Word have preeminence in this place today. In Jesus' name, somebody who loves Him shout amen!
Well, my brothers and sisters, here we go again, praising the Lord. I want to preface this message by setting it in the context that one of the things I enjoy about life is that as I get older, I have points of reflection that I can look back on for comparison that perhaps younger people do not always have. I remember after the death of Dr. King how churches all over the country were filled to the brim. The uncertainty of the times, and the way it shook up particularly our community, brought people out to church who normally didn’t come. I call them Easter Christians. All the Easter Christians came to church that Sunday because Dr. King was there. They were nervous, shaking, and riveted. People were crying; schoolteachers were bursting out in tears.
People we knew who normally didn’t express themselves emotionally were distraught. They were under pressure and anxiety. When people are under anxiety, whether they are normally churchgoers or not, they turn to the church, as well they should, and as well they can. But when the pressure receded, they disappeared. I remember after 9/11, for about six to eight weeks after 9/11, you couldn’t get into our church. We had to set out chairs every Sunday; it was jammed and packed as far as you could see. People were coming to church because they had been shaken. They were upset and uneasy, so they started coming out to church. It’s almost like the kind of prayer that you pray when you say, «Lord, if You get me out of this, I’ll never do that again. If You get me out of this, I’m going to serve You. If You get me out of this, I’m going to seek Your face.» Whenever people are upset, they start seeking God.
Now we are in the moment of COVID-19, unlike anything we have ever seen in the world, and churches everywhere are closed down. Some people are fighting to reopen, saying «Open it up! Open it up! I want in!» and other people are streaming online, saying «Keep it closed! Keep it closed! I don’t want in!» But whether you’re receiving it online or going into a building, there is a new hunger for God’s Word. Isn’t it amazing how a disease can create a hunger and awakening to the fact that my life could be lost or shaken? That uncertainty causes all ambiguity to dissipate. Agnostics become converted. All of a sudden, we start looking at these matters differently because we are seeking something stable to hold on to in times of need. I am happy and glad that the church has this opportunity to comfort our communities, feed our communities, and serve our communities in whatever way we can. But that’s not what I came to talk about. I came to discuss what happens after the fire goes out. What do you do when the fire goes out?
I’ve hired new employees, and when they first come to work, you have to pull them away from their beds. Everybody else has left, and they’re still there working, asking, «Give me something else to do! Give me something else to do!» Oh God, I want to do something! Sometimes they’re so eager that two or three people are doing the job of one. That goes on for maybe six or eight months, maybe if you’re lucky, and then the fire goes out. I’ve seen couples who could hardly take their hands off each other on the plane during their honeymoon, groping all over each other. She has a paid-for seat, but she’s not sitting in it; she’s sitting in his lap. They just got married!
They tell everybody, giggling and grinning; they drink out of the same cup, and they even use the same water fountain. One time, when they go to the restroom, they’re knocking on the door, «Honey, come out!» Yeah, that’s what they do for a while. They celebrate anniversaries—it’s our fifth week! Yeah, it’s our five-week anniversary! You can’t find a card for a five-week anniversary, but they celebrate them because the fire is still going on. You know they spent all their time locked up in the room—fire, fire, fire! But the real test of time has yet to come.
When the time prize fire, the question is not how you behave when the fire is there; the question becomes, how do you behave after the fire goes out? Every fire eventually goes out. Every fire goes out. The fires in California burned up neighborhoods, communities, mansions, houses, and properties. Firefighters were flying overhead, dumping water on it. Other firefighters came from around the country. The wind was sweeping; it was on the news every day. But as much terrain, as many forests as it burned through, as many crops as it destroyed, and as much property as it demolished, eventually, the fire goes out. Every fire goes out!
Yeah, you can’t stay on fire forever. Sooner or later, you have to come out. The priest goes into the Holies of Holies. He goes past the outer court to the inner court to the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. But God says you can’t stay here. You can’t remain under the anointing and under the glory; the real work is outside. And so when you leave here, that’s when the work starts. In my text today, there is nothing about fire. It seems kind of strange to me that you would take a text like that and call it «After the Fire Goes Out.» Normally, the text should complement the subject; there should be some continuity between the two. But in Exodus 4:18–21, you just read it: there’s nothing about fire. Either my mind is fading or there must be some point to it. I would not just knowingly pick a subject and a text with no relationship to each other.
It is perhaps the case that Exodus 4:18–21 deals with Moses going to Jethro and telling him that he has stayed out here as long as he can. He spent 40 years on the backside of the desert working for Jethro and Miriam, and now he abruptly announces to Jethro that he has to go back to Egypt to deliver a message to Pharaoh and to see about his people. And all of a sudden, everything begins to change because in Exodus chapter 3, Moses was taking care of sheep. As he began to take care of the sheep, the Bible says he came to a place leading the sheep by the way. Leading the sheep was prophetic to what he was going to do for the rest of his life. Isn’t it interesting how God gives you glimpses of your future?
He lets you practice on your destiny. He gives you opportunities to do little things before you do big things to see if you can be faithful over sheep before He gives you millions of people. He sent him out into the desert to lead sheep when ultimately, he would be out leading people. But despite the day of small beginnings, you don’t see Moses complaining about the sheep. You don’t see him saying, «Oh God, I’ve got a problem with a wolf! I’ve got a problem with lions!» Because he understands that the sheep are practice! But he doesn’t realize for what.
That’s a word right there! I’m just getting started, but that’s a word for somebody right there. You’re all upset about something that God gave you as practice; it’s not your purpose. It’s not your destiny; it’s your practice. He gave you something to play with so you could work on your skills, so your leadership skills could get better, your communication skills could improve, and your judgment could get better. So that when you enter your destiny, you won’t mess up people. He gave you sheep to practice with, so that later, when He gives you people, you’ll know what you’re doing. Experience works—patience, experience, hope—and hope makes not ashamed.
So Moses goes to Jethro and says, «Sister Jethro, I’ve got to go! I’ve been here 40 years, but I’ve got to leave! I’ve got to go down to Egypt and see about my brother!» See, Moses is not a Midianite; he is an Israelite. He has been with these people for a long time, but he says, «I’ve got to go see about my brothers.» You have to remember, this is not just a craving. It’s in Moses’s heart to reconnect with the people he is related to. Because he is connected to someone he’s not kin to—realize that Moses grew up in Egypt. So he grew up like an Egyptian; by blood, he was a Hebrew. So he is related to them by blood but isn’t connected to them by experience. And even though he’s not connected to them by experience, God wants him to have a cosmopolitan worldview, so He allows a Hebrew boy to be educated by the Egyptians and mentored by the Midianites. This way, Moses can deal with all kinds of people. There’s always a reason for why God takes you through a process in preparation for what He wants to do in your life. Nothing happens by accident, and nothing that you’ve been through will be wasted.
So he goes to Jethro and says, «I’ve got to go.» The reason I read that text is that the more familiar passage would be chapter 3, when Moses is taking care of sheep. And while he’s taking care of the sheep, the Bible says he noticed a bush that was burning but not consumed. And the Bible says he turned aside to see the bush that was not consumed. You remember that? He turned aside to see. See, when God causes a bush to burn but not be consumed, it’s not unusual for a bush to burn in the desert. It gets so hot, and the sun’s rays are so intense that it would set a bush on fire. What’s unusual is that the bush didn’t stop burning. I realized that it’s not unusual for people to get sick.
People get sick all the time. They get the flu, colds, asthma, and aneurysms. People get sick; they die all the time—that’s not unusual. But what’s unusual about this is that so many got sick, and so many started dying, and so many were contagious during COVID-19. It should have been over if it was just the flu, but it just kept burning! And I thought that in some ways, it might be a bush that cannot be consumed. Instead of burned out, it kept burning. It should have been stopped in China, but it kept burning! It should have been stopped in Europe, but it kept burning! It should have been stopped in Italy, but it kept burning! All along, when they said that was their business, and we’re praying for you, there was a sense of urgency. But it kept on burning and burned on over into New York, and it burned on over into Vegas, and burned into California. It kept on burning, and as it continued to burn, we started to get nervous. We started getting nervous; we began talking to our allies and our enemies because the bush was not consumed.
It occurs to me that when God gets ready to get your attention, you’ll know—not because the bush is burning, but because the bush is not consumed. It won’t stop; it was not consumed. Whenever something begins and it won’t stop, God is trying to tell you something. Whenever it starts burning and is not consumed, God is after your attention. The hardest thing for God to get sometimes is your attention, yes, because we’re so busy doing something—anything. I told a friend of mine the other day that the most amazing thing to me about being a pastor is noticing all the things we are doing that God does not need. God said, «I don’t need your programs. I don’t need your crowds. I don’t need your buildings. I don’t need your order of service. I don’t need your dancers. I don’t need your choirs. I don’t need your greeters. I don’t need your officers. I’m going to shut all of that down and show you that I am God. I can do this without all the stuff you built: your conferences, your crusades, your cruises; I don’t need any of that. When I get ready to do something, I am God.»
It was a humbling experience to recognize how little of what we do God needs in order to get our attention. And when God got everybody’s attention, it was almost like your mama sending your two-year-old to their room—God sent the whole world to their room, and everybody’s in lockdown; everybody’s in solitary confinement. And God says, «Can you hear me now?» Almost like a phone commercial: «Can you hear me now?» I’ll shut down your job; I’ll shut down your movement; I’ll shut down your transportation. «Can you hear me now?» I’ll shut down your finances; can you hear me now? I’ll put your relatives in the hospital; can you hear me now? I’m going to keep going until I get your attention. And God is saying, «Can you hear me now?»
Obviously, many of you watching online are saying, «Yes, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you!» You’re wise to say yes. A greater thing comes upon me. Whenever you’re stubborn and refuse to hear God, He has to send something worse to get you to turn around. America, hear me: if we don’t hear God here, it’s going to get worse. If we don’t stop bickering politically, it’s going to get worse. If we don’t stop killing innocent people, it’s going to get worse. If we don’t stop calling wrong right and right wrong, it’s going to get worse. If we don’t seek a sense of justice irrespective of who it is, it’s going to get worse. God is going to get our attention, and I don’t care what it takes—the bush is going to burn until you turn aside.
Let me go on record: God is a just God; He is against all injustice and all immorality. I’m not speaking to the guilt or innocence of any man; I’m talking about the lack of due process in law. If there’s not due process, there can’t be justice. While you argue that maybe there’s another side to the story, I’m arguing that they’ve never even arrested the man in the first place. They will smash me in jail if I go two miles over the speed limit. I’m talking about justice. Something has to be done—not only in America but around the world. Injustice persists; people are starving to death beside those who live in mansions. There’s inequity in every sphere of life. I’m not talking about having enough or even more than enough; I’m talking about having such a surplus that employees can’t get a raise.
I’m talking about big companies paying off stockholders off the backs of people who are making minimum wage, who can’t even pay rent while working for you every day. Something has to be done about injustice. Something has to be done when the people who protect the city can’t afford to live in the city they protect. Something has to be done when I have to drive an hour to get to work because I have to stay out of town to find something cheap enough to accommodate the wages you pay me so that I can come in and protect you in the city, and you don’t respect me.
Away with your flowers and your songs and your «God bless you» and calling me a hero! I don’t need a title; I need a raise! Whenever injustice goes on long enough, God will have to do something to get your attention and make you appreciate people you used to look down on—thinking they should have gone back to school and gotten more education. All of a sudden, we’re thanking God for truck drivers and checkout girls—people we were looking down on! God has a way of getting your attention, and the bush started burning. Nobody could stop it. It burned into the hotel business, and it burned into Hollywood. My God, it burned into the music industry and all the concerts were canceled. It burned into the opera houses, and all our singers had to sit down.
It burned into New York, and all of a sudden Madison Square Garden closed. Everything began to burn. It burned into Vegas; it burned into Florida, and all the snowbirds had to come home. It kept burning and burning. This is a burning bush! Moses saw a burning bush in the Bible, and it said he turned aside to see, and that’s all God wants us to do: to turn aside to see. To see means to change direction. In order to turn aside to see, you have to change direction. That’s all repentance means. Repentance does not mean tears; it does not mean crying; it has nothing to do with emotions. It means changing behavior, changing direction. Burning bushes always require a change of direction.
I was on the phone with a bunch of preachers, and they were telling me we need to all get together and pray at the same time. They were going to distribute prayers, and we were going to read prayers on Sunday morning, and we were going to pray about this, not knowing that Sunday morning was about to close down. When they finished having this big conference call with these global preachers—really big, important, significant preachers sincerely trying to do something to stop the pandemic from coming—they asked me to have remarks and do the benediction. When they started talking about the plagues and that the planes were stopped through prayer. When I got down to the benediction, I said, «I just want to insert something into your thinking. It was not the prayers that stopped the plague; it was the repentance.»
We can all pray the same prayer at the same time, but if we don’t change our behavior, the plague is going to continue. The prayer is not the point; it’s not the prayer—it was the repentance that stopped God from destroying Nineveh. Oh, come on, somebody! The Bible says Nineveh repented, and because Nineveh repented, judgment was spared. It was repentance that turned it around. Repentance will make the angel put his sword back in his sheath. Repentance will stop the plague. Repentance is to change. So in your life, periodically—in your life, in my life—there have been burning bushes. Look back over your life. Every now and then, something started burning that would not be consumed, and God uses it to get your attention.
I wouldn’t be a Christian today if it weren’t for burning bushes. Burning bushes made me humble myself; burning bushes made me shut my mouth. Burning bushes brought me down to my knees. Burning bushes stopped me from thinking too highly of myself. Burning bushes humbled me down from believing I knew everything. Burning bushes bring about things that don’t make sense—a burning bush that will not be consumed. It’s something that happens in your life that doesn’t make sense, and you cannot ignore it; you cannot stop it, and you have to deal with it. Then it makes you throw your hands up, make you get down on your knees, and make you call people you normally ignore. It makes you stream online to get a word from God because you’ve got a burning bush in your life.
And it doesn’t have to be COVID-19 to be a burning bush; no, no, no! For someone, a burning bush is breast cancer; for someone, a burning bush is a divorce and a broken marriage; for someone else, a burning bush is the death of a loved one. It doesn’t have to be an international calamity to be a burning bush. The whole world may not know that Moses’s bush was burning, and the whole world might not know, but you have a burning bush in your life—a private display of God’s insistence to get your attention and an undeniable declaration of «I’m going to have your attention.» If I have to get it in a wheelchair, I’m going to have your attention. If I have to get it in a hospital room, I’m going to have your attention. If they have to cut your legs off or half your hand—in the end, I’m going to win this fight! I’m talking about burning bushes, and Moses turned aside to see.
What amazed me is that, even though I have preached many times before, the conversation went deeper when God told Moses, «Take off your shoes, for the ground you are standing on is holy ground.» It was holy because God was there. That’s the only thing that makes a place holy—it’s because God is here. Your living room can be holy if God is there. You could be in the shower; you can be holy if God gets in there with you. You could be in your car; if God gets in the car, it can be holy because God is there. It’s not holy because it has pews and stained glass windows, and crosses, and any human being’s idea of Jesus. Although that’s alright, it’s not what makes it holy. «Take off your shoes, for the ground you stand on is holy ground.»
God is going to make holy ground in your house, holy ground in your living room, holy ground in your apartment, holy ground in your car, and holy ground on your job. God says, «I am holy ground. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.» It is the first time that God says He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had never referred to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob until Moses. He does not even tell Jacob that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, He told Jacob that his name was not Jacob; his name was Israel. But God does not say, «I am the God of Abraham, Lincoln, and Israel.» He says, «I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.»
In other words, I am not just the God of the best in you. See, Jacob was not the good part of Israel. Jacob was the trickster, the con artist, the supplanter. He was like his family—Rebekah and Laban. All of them were jex. Jacob was the part that wrestled with God, and Israel was who he was destined to be. God said, «Your name is really Israel, and you are a prince, and you have power with God.» But every prince has got a Jacob. So all of a sudden, when God gets ready to identify Himself—the God who told Jacob that his name would no longer be called Jacob but Israel—says, «I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.»
Oh, thank You, Lord, for being the God of Jacob! Thank You for being the God of the worst part of me! Thank You that I don’t have to hide my Jacob! Thank You that You love my Jacob! See, I know you want to argue with that, but God who commended His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The theology is absolutely right: God does not love you because you are holy, because you read your Bible, or because you go to church all the time. He doesn’t love you because you fast from «thirst in stuff» or only eat collard greens on Wednesdays. God does not love you because you sing in the choir or work on the usher board. He loved you when you were lying, cheating, stealing, and hanging off a pole, going to striptease in a cheap hotel room.
God loved you when you were shooting dope up your arm and laying in gutters in alleyways, burning the hair out of your nose. God still loved you when you were high, when you were locked up in jail, and when you were in your perversions and your filth and your muck and your mire. God loved you in the decadence of your life! God didn’t wait until things got better to love you; He loved you in your mess. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Take off your shoes; take off your shoes because the ground you stand on is holy. But you’re not holy; you’re not holy, but the ground—the ground is holier than you. The ground you stand on is holy ground. That’s how God started His conversation with Moses. Then they entered into conversation—a God and a man in a desert alone.
Can you imagine it? A God and a man in a desert alone, and there He is, having a conversation with Moses to help Moses understand who He is. And God begins to tell Moses, what is he going to do with him now? You must understand that Moses is a murderer; he’s a convict, he’s on the run, he’s an outlaw, and he’s hiding on the backside of the desert. And God found him. You can’t go anywhere where God cannot find you. If you make your bed in hell, He is there; if your sin is in the most remote parts, He is there.
Yeah, okay, if you’re locked up in the bottom of a jail cell, God is there. They can put you in the inner sanctum of a prison, but God is there. They can fly you off to the mountain peaks, and God is there. You can be an astronaut and fly away out of the Earth’s orbit, but God is up there too, and He will find you and flush you out. God found Moses on the backside of the desert and said, «They are calling you a convict and an outlaw, but I have a plan for your life.» He tells him, «I am the God of Jacob. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so don’t run off, you convict, you fleshly prophet, who tries to enact God’s will in your own way and ends up an outlaw on the run because you thought you could do it without me. I am the God of your mistakes, not just your miracles; I am the God of your mess, not just your message. Take off your shoes, for the ground you stand on is holy ground.»
And then the conversation ensues, where God allows the man who is practicing leadership to start practicing miracles. God takes his rod, something that is very ordinary, and does extraordinary things with it to let Moses know that you don’t have to be an extraordinary man to do extraordinary things. If you are watching this broadcast, you want to write that down: you don’t have to be an extraordinary man to do extraordinary things because you have an extraordinary God. So, God does all these extraordinary things with Moses' rod to let him know that it’s not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. He wants him to understand that He can use something natural to do something supernatural, that He can use something ordinary to do something extraordinary, that He can use your frailty and your flaws.
Moses is having trouble understanding that. He performs some miracles: he thrusts his hand into his bosom, and it comes out white as snow; he thrusts it in again and it’s clean. He turns the water into blood, throws down his stick, and it turns into a serpent. He picks it up by the tail, and it turns back into a staff again. And all of a sudden, Moses starts walking with what he calls the rod of the Lord. It was really Moses' rod, but it was the Lord’s rod. They shared this rod; God had put something in your hand, and it will be yours, but it’s His. As He is, it’s in your hands; God makes you a steward over something.
Let’s go; this is absolutely amazing! I don’t know who this is for, but God is going to put the ability to make great wealth in your hands. It’s going to come from a natural place, but it’s going to blow your mind. In fact, it has already started to happen. You thought it was a stick, but it’s turning into something else! Hallelujah! But get ready; I see God putting blessings into your hands, prosperity into your hands, opening doors into your hands, making ways into your hands. You’re standing there feeling unworthy, and you’re right; you’re not worthy, but He is worthy, and He’s your rod. But it’s His rod; it’s your rod, but it’s His rod. He’s going to put it in your hands. In your hands, it’s enough; I can do this.
God will do extraordinary things out of ordinary things. God will do supernatural things with natural things. God can use me in spite of the fact that I’m a criminal and an outlaw. God could still use me, but because the root of insecurity is so deep, Moses is still talking to God. They talked a long time; God and Moses talked a long time. They talked so long that God told Moses what to say when he went down to tell Pharaoh this and tell Pharaoh that. When He told Moses what to say, then Moses came up with another excuse. He said, «I can’t, I can’t go down there and talk,» because he felt like God didn’t know. He started in and out, and then God said, «Did I not make your mouth?»
Listen at God and man talking in a desert—God and man talking through a burning bush—God and man talking to you while you’re shutting in. Now that I have your attention, I’m going to show you how I can use yours for my glory. Now that I have your attention, I can show you that I have a supernatural plan for a natural man’s life. Now that I have your attention, I want you to start thinking extraordinary thoughts. You’ve thought enough ordinary stuff; you’ve practiced with the ordinary long enough. I’m getting ready to do something extraordinary in your life.
And he’s standing in front of the bush, and the bush is burning. As it burns, it’s burning out his fear, burning out his doubt, burning out his uncertainty, burning out his shame, and burning out his insecurity. What we need is for the fire to burn out all our excuses; all of the excuses that you make as to why you can’t do or be or say what God told you to do, be, and say. The fire has come to burn out all your excuses. This is our burning bush, America! I know it’s affecting other countries and other places, but you’ve got to worry about you right now.
America, this is our burning bush. Our racism, our elitism, and our politicizing has gone as far as it can go. This is our burning bush; God is after our attention. We cannot keep using power to destroy families, leave people trapped at the border, separate fathers from daughters, and mothers from kids, and then say we’re pro-life. You can’t be pro-life in the womb and not pro-life after birth. You can’t be pro-life and then be for the death penalty. Come on, America! We have to look at ourselves; we have to look at our issues, the way we fellowship, and the way we get quiet when other people are dying and in trouble, saying that that’s their problem and not our problem when it is our problem.
We’re wrong if we say that we are African Americans and Mexican Americans; we ought to all be Americans. But then when we start dying, we all die like Americans. When we go to court, we don’t go to court like Americans. America, this is our burning bush; this is our burning bush, and we have to take off our shoes and humble ourselves, lest we die, for the ground we stand on is holy ground. God is after our attention. Yeah, because absolute power corrupts absolutely. We’re not a monarchy; just because you have an opinion that diminishes me doesn’t make you the benchmark standard of right. We have to take off our shoes. To take off your shoes in the desert is to be vulnerable, to be naked, to be exposed. It’s painful because the sand is hot sometimes; the truth is painful.
This is our burning bush; we must take off our shoes until you love my children and I love your children like they were my children, and you love my children like they were your children. We must take off our shoes until we care about people who don’t look like us, no matter their color or age. And this is not just about black and white because you can be white and poor and still be overlooked and ignored. It’s about an attitude of arrogance and pride that we have, where you can buy justice if you have enough money.
We must take off our shoes, America! We have shaken our fists in the face of God; we must take off our shoes. America, we have no respect for human life, not in the womb or out of the womb. We must take off our shoes, America, and stop throwing away babies like the toilet paper. We must take off our shoes. We are drunk with our own success and accomplishments. We keep telling ourselves that we are exceptional while we lag behind in education, lag behind in the economy, lag behind in social services, and lag behind in cyber technology. We keep telling ourselves that we are exceptional. Take off your shoes! Take off your shoes! Take off your shoes! God wants to have a naked conversation with you—an overarching conversation, a covenant-keeping conversation. He wants to get your attention.
You want to know who He is? He said, «I am that I am. I’m bread, I’m water, I’m life, I’m peace, I’m power, I’m judgment, I’m mercy, I’m grace, I’m forgiveness, I’m the solution, I’m the answer, I’m the stars, I’m the lily of the valley, I’m the bright morning star. I am the shield and the buckler; I am whatever I need to be to get your attention. I’ll be plagues; I’ll be wars; I’ll be earthquakes; I’ll be lightning; I’ll be thunder; I’ll be rain; I’ll be floods; I’ll be winds; I’ll be everything I have to be to get your attention. And no matter how many times you try to call me the universe, I’m God. No matter how many times you try to call me Mother Nature, I’m God. No matter how many times you try to fix it up in some ecumenical terminology, I’ll show you who I am, my God, and you can’t write a check to get out of this, and you can’t call a friend to get out of this, and you can’t jump on a private jet to get out of this because I’ll shut it all down on the earth. I’ll shut down every door and every escape. Don’t you remember the flood? When I get ready to get your attention, I can shut down everything and anything. I’m God!»
And the fire—if the whole bush was on fire—Moses started confessing his limitations. «I’m flawed, Lord; I’m flawed. I want to do it, but I’m scared. I want to do it, but last time I tried to help, I messed up.» There’s somebody who had a bad experience and you stopped living; you had a bad experience and stopped living. You can’t spend the rest of your life lamenting over the mistake you made. Moses made a mistake, but his life wasn’t over. His ministry wasn’t over, and God sent a burning bush to say, «I still have a plan for your life.»
There’s a preacher watching me right now; you went through a terrible scandal, and you feel like your life is over. I know you’re hurting, and I know you’re in pain, but God is not finished with you yet. God has a plan for your life, and though you’ve been embarrassed and ashamed, God loves you. «I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and yes, I am the God of Jacob. Moses, take off your shoes. If I can be the God of Jacob, I can be your God too. If I can be the God of Jacob, I can be the God of a convict. If I can be the God of Jacob, I can be the God of a misfit. If I can be the God of Jacob, I can be the God of the mistakes you made. Take off your shoes right now; yeah, I’m talking to you.
Take off your shoes; you’re about to have an encounter with God! Take off your shoes; God is about to change your life! Take off your shoes! God is about to get charged! Can’t you take off your shoes? The ground you stand on is holy ground, it’s holy ground! I’m going to answer your questions, and God Almighty sat down and talked to Moses face to face. God Almighty talked to Moses face to face and talked to him about his fears, his insecurities, his doubts, his limitations, his uncertainty, and his depression. He talked to him about giving up on life and giving up on his purpose and his destiny. God Himself sat down and counseled Moses like a psychiatrist. God Himself sat down with Moses and reasoned with him like two lawyers in a courtroom, and He said to Moses face to face.
Moses said, „My mouth stutters.“ God said, „Did I not make your mouth? Did I not make your tongue? Don’t you know that I know what’s wrong with you, and yet I called you to speak? Don’t you know that my strength is made perfect in weakness? I call the stuttering man to speak to kings and princes because I knew you would be humbled. I knew you wouldn’t be arrogant like the rest of them. I knew you wouldn’t write books about what you did because you knew you started out flawed and that had it not been for me you wouldn’t be able to do anything that you did. I knew you would give me the glory. Don’t you know that I know you had a baby out of wedlock? Don’t you know that I know that you’re HIV-positive?
You know that I know you’ve made mistakes. Don’t you know that I know who you are? I know your secret; I know your doubt. But I still want you. And the amazing thing is not what we do when the bush is burning, because I’ve seen us do this before. I’ve seen us rally to the church after the murder of King. I’ve seen us rally to the church after 9/11. I’ve seen us rally to the church when Pearl Harbor was born; history says we rallied to the church. I’ve seen us rally to the church when we’re scared. I’ve seen us come to Jesus when the bush was burning, and your mama got cancer. I’ve seen sinners, and vinyls, and dope dealers, and drug dealers, and club owners come to church because your mama got cancer.
I’ve seen how we act when the bush is burning. But the question becomes, what are you going to do after the fire goes out? It was not what Moses did when the fire was burning that made him a great man of God; it was what he did when the fire went out. When the fire went out, he took his stuttering self to Jethro’s house, and he said, „Though I got a call, I gotta go see about my brother.“ He had a sense of purpose; he had a sense of destiny. He still had stammering lips, but he knew who he was and what was going to happen in his life. He went to Jethro and said, „Let me go. I gotta go down there and tell Pharaoh, 'God said let my people go.'“ And as he turned to go, God said by the way, „all of them that were after you…“ Wish I knew who I was preaching to. But God said, „All of them that were trying to kill you are dead. I dealt with your enemy.“ Show enemy it’s gone. This ain’t even the same Pharaoh that you left. All of them that remember your mistakes, I swiped them out of the earth. The slate is clear; the door is open; the way is made.
My God, I feel like I’m talking directly to somebody. I can almost call your name. God said, 'All your enemies are dead. I took the teeth out of the lion. I shut them up in a cage. I’ve rendered them powerless. I left them distracted. I made them impotent. No weapon formed against you shall be able to prosper. Every tongue that rises against you, God said, I’m going to condemn it. Your enemies have become my enemies. I’m going to drive them out from in front of your face, and no man will be able to stand against you all the days of your life.' I don’t know who I’m preaching to, but God said he’s already dealt with your enemies. If I’m talking to you, give God a praise right now. I said if I’m talking to you, give God a praise.
If your enemies are defeated, give God a praise. If the curse is broken over your life, give God a praise. If the spell is broken off your house, give God a praise right now. I curse every witch, every witch doctor, every soothsayer, every enemy. God said your enemies are defeated in the name of Jesus. I need 30 seconds of crazy praise in this house! My God, my God, I dare you to praise Him until demons tremble. Praise Him until hell gets nervous. Crazy praise, and please, your body gets healed. Praise for your mama, 'cause she’s in the hospital. Praise until you get a breakthrough. Praise until they take off the ventilator. Pray that God opens up a door. Praise until the cancer shrinks. Praise until you get a job. Praise until you open up a door.
I feel the power of the Holy Ghost in this place! I dare you to praise Him right now! Right now! I want you to realize it was not so much what Moses did when the fire was burning that changed his life. The fire got his attention; it arrested him. But what really changes our life is what we do after the fire goes out. Anybody can be fascinated for a moment. Anybody can draw inspiration for a moment. But that’s not what God is looking for. God is not interested in entertaining you. God didn’t do all of this just to amuse you while you sit at home. God sat down to have a conversation with you that will change your life after the fire goes out. God sat down to get your attention, to break the strongholds of the habits, so that after the fire goes out, you would not be the same man or woman you were before.
God’s in all of this to break through all of your excuses that say, „I can’t. I didn’t have this. I didn’t see that. I wasn’t loved, and they didn’t raise me.“ God wants to break the back of every excuse you’ve used all your life to be less than what He created you to be. They’re excuses that build monuments of nothing, and God sent the burning bush to tell you He already knows what your voice sounds like and what you look like, and what you don’t have and what you’ve been through. And He still wants to use you! In the spirit, I see tears rushing down someone’s face, because this is a word from God to you and it’s speaking to you in a very deep way. And I understand, Moses is scared.
I understand why Moses feels limited. Because to be used of God is absolutely horrifying. It’s absolutely horrifying! While other people are clapping, it is absolutely horrifying, 'cause you know how little you have to work with using you. But the question is not will God show up; God has always shown up. He’s been in every burning bush you’ve ever had in your life. The problem is when the bush stops burning, you go back to being who you were before. And the Lord said, „This time after the fire goes out, He wants you to be on point. After the fire goes out, He wants you to be on purpose. After the fire goes out, He wants you to be on task. After the fire goes out, He wants you to have courage where you had fear before.“
And if you think the bush burning was scary, let me tell you what’s really scary: It’s watching the fire go out, because as the fire goes out, that’s when the real test begins. What did you learn while you were locked down, shut in, set apart, isolated? The test doesn’t happen while the bush is burning, it happens after the fire goes out. And so Moses takes his knife, saddles an ass, and goes to confront the thing that he’s been scared of all his life. And his ability to confront his fears is what justifies the fire. He couldn’t fulfill his purpose while the fire was burning; he fulfilled his purpose after the fire went out. As I close this message today, I want to tell somebody: Somewhere the numbers are receding, the arc is diminishing; in most places, the deaths are going down, and in some places, the infections have declined.
I’m so glad for all those people. But what does that mean to us when the fire goes out? The real work begins. How do we build our country and our world back better than it was before? With whom do we want to build it through, and what have we learned at the expense of thousands who suffered in every tongue, language, and kind around the earth? What have we learned after the fire goes out? We’ve applauded the nurses and janitors and first responders and grocery workers and technicians; we’ve done little wonderful things, like made smiles and hearts for them. But will we still not pay them? We’ve appreciated teachers who have taught through cameras and long distances and honored their flexibility and commitment to give graduation moments to kids that got no graduations — teachers driving by in cars, waving at their students. We’ve appreciated them, but will we now pay them?
America, the real question is not can we withstand the fire. We lost some terrible losses, but I always knew some of us would survive. The question becomes, what have we learned? What will we do? Who will we be after the fire goes out? Now, I’m not totally sure. It’s how the embers are still red-hot; a good wind would ignite them all over again. We’re not as free as we think we are. So before you go back to the club and return to business as usual, you should be careful, because every goodbye is gone; every closed eye is sleep. I’d hate for us to have to take this class again, but it’s possible, and some people say probable, that this downturn is just for a season.
Have we learned how the federal government interacts with the state government and the city government? How the city can work with the church? Do we speak the same language? How does the finance flow? Who’s responsible for PPE? Who’s responsible for ventilation? Have we got a system in place should this ever happen again? What will we do when the fires go out? I know, I know you say, „Preach your mind; mind your own business, just preach the gospel and shut up.“ But I’m also a citizen and a taxpayer too. Have we learned anything? Did this make us better, or are we destined to go through another burning bush, because we’ve lost our tongues to speak out against craziness, destruction, and disorder?
And we sold our souls for photos, for opportunities, for name mentions! We’ve walked away from our principles for power. Who will you be, Moses? I’m not gonna burn the next 40 years of your life. I’m gonna burn once, and you gotta keep burning the next 40 or 80 years of your life. You gotta keep burning. Who you gonna be, Moses? Who are you going to be? If you find this challenging; if it spoke to you; if it challenged you; if God is saying something to your heart about your future before the embers blow out or blow up, why don’t you pray with me?
There’s nothing as valuable as a second chance, a fresh opportunity, a new perspective. That’s what God has afforded you right now. I know you lost some stuff; some businesses went down and you lost your job; you’re having to retool yourself. But don’t worry; don’t worry about any of those things. Seek ye first the kingdom, and all these things are going to be added unto you. You’re putting all your energy into the things and not the King! Go after the King, and the things are gonna come back. All of them are coming back. Will you seek Him now? Will you come to Him now?
As they begin to minister in music, give me a good song. I want to have a moment with you—a moment of deep spiritual reflection. A moment where you look down inside your spirit and challenge yourself on the blood of all of those body bags in New York and all around the country, on the blood of all of those funeral homes who have bodies packed hidden in garages, overwhelmed, don’t know what to do with them, calling for help, can’t manage all of it. They say, „Nothing but the flu.“ The flu ain’t never done that to us! The flu has never made us have to store bodies in body bags and fill 18-wheelers and shut down funeral homes. We’ve never seen this before! Don’t be foolish; this is a burning bush! God wants you; He wants you back; He’s got a plan for your life. Yes, I know you have church hurt and all that kind of stuff—hashtag church hurt—but you don’t have no hashtag God hurt. You left God over people. Don’t you feel the Holy Spirit? Would you return?
Lord, I shared with them the things that you shared with me to share. And I pray today, in the name of Jesus, that we wouldn’t walk away from you after the fire goes out. Anybody can be mesmerized in a moment when they’re threatened, insecure, and in danger. But after that initial fascination has dissipated, there should be a lingering consecration that continues to abide in our lives. I ask, as a concern for the one that feels unworthy, incapable, incompetent, dirty, and ashamed, wash them in your blood and bring them all back to you. You can do it! Do it in their life right now, in the name of Jesus. Transform a life. Yes, Lord! For somebody, it’s gonna be a career change, but transform their life. For other people, it’s gonna be some friends that fall off, but transform their lives. We don’t need another burning bush. We’re humble before you; we’re prostrate before you. We’re not so smart. We’re not so bright. We’re not so powerful. We’re not so good. We’re not so wonderful. We confess right now: we are better. We’ve got problems, issues, inconsistencies. We’ve got problems! Lord, have mercy! In Jesus' name, Amen.